Global Racism: A Challenge For The World

Racism, in all of its forms, harms millions of people around the world, but what exactly is it? The answer, Anna Spain Bradley argues, is older, more complex, and more global than we have ever acknowledged. In Global Racism: A Challenge for the World, Spain Bradley names global racism as an uncharted form of oppression operating on a global scale that interacts with the human ecosystem and world order. Global racism is ubiquitous and universally available, capable of existing anywhere and everywhere people are. The book creates space for compelling conversations, connecting people across continents and cultures in recognition of a shared form of oppression.


Drawing from law, history, and modern-day accounts of racism from around the world, Global Racism advances an original thesis. From the segregation of Roma children in European schools to housing discrimination against foreigners in Japan, from anti-Black racism in American policing to anti-Indigenous violence in Australia, global racism takes distinct local forms while sharing a common thread - us. Connecting its contemporary manifestations to historical practices such as slavery, colonialism, segregation, and apartheid, the book maps the ecosystem through which global racism spreads. Global racism circulates, often invisibly, by way of dangerous ideologies of superiority before manifesting as the discriminatory acts and systemic inequalities we more readily recognize today. Spanning centuries and exploring continents, the book charts the contours of global racism not simply as a local or national problem, but as a challenge for the world.


Provocative, wide-ranging, and deeply researched, Global Racism reimagines the fight against racism as a fight for our common humanity. Drawing upon two decades of experience as a legal scholar, human rights advocate, and UN legal expert, Spain Bradley warns that global racism is not just a problem for some people and some nations, but for us all. The way forward demands that nations define racism as a human rights violation under international law. It also requires replacing ideologies of superiority with dignity, embracing the power of inclusive education, and launching a coordinated framework to tackle a global threat. Global Racism calls on readers to rethink what it means to be human, defined not by what divides us but by what unites us.

Anna Spain Bradley is a professor of law and the MacArthur Foundation Chair in International Justice and Human Rights at the University of California, Los Angeles. She has spent the past two decades studying the promotion of peace, human rights and international law around the world. She is a U.S. Presidential appointee to the World Bank ICSID Panel of Conciliators, former legal expert to the United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of Contemporary Standards, and former Vice Chancellor for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at UCLA. Spain Bradley is also the author of Human Choice in International Law (2021) and co-editor of International Dispute Resolution 3rd edition (2021).